Timing way off! 35hp mercury

[whiteJohnson15]

Hey guys new member here. I just picked up a 87 mercury 35hp and was checking everything out for a trip and found who ever had it obviously didn't know what they were doing. Both the full throttle and max timing screws were adjusted all the way out! So with my manual proceeded with a full link and sync and timing check. I got the pickup timing set but the max timing wont come close. If the throttle is half open the timing sets at the max which is 27. Anything past half throttle its way over like double the max timing. I indexed the flywheel, it is dead on 0 at tdc. All magnets look good and nothing looks melted under the flywheel. btw I am setting max timing with the carbs disconnected so it wouldnt rev so high with motor in a test tank and still the timing is way off. What will cause the timing to go haywire like this? Its almost got to be a trigger or switch box problem right? Also compression is perfect both cylinders are reading about the same. Any help would be appreciated. .. thanks

[rickriddle]

Stator is not mounted correct. Just ran into same issue. It's off one way or the other in mounting holes.

[whiteJohnson15]

Thanks for the suggestion but I could tell that stator, trigger, flywheel had never been pulled till I did it. I did find the problem....trigger and switchbox were both bad! Spent $175 on those parts and motor runs great! I only paid $200 for the motor so I think it was money well spent. I did suspect I was missing something under the flywheel like magnets or stator in the wrong position but it wasn't. I learned something new that the trigger and switchbox can really screw up timing as well if defective. Only thing is didn't excatly figure out which one failed first, I tried new switchbox and old trigger and still no good then new trigger and old switchbox and still no good...then used both new parts and it worked! They were both bad I guess!